Did SF put their own mint mark on in 1941-45

[Guest]

I read in another forum (Coin Community Forum) that Philadelphia made the working dies for SF and Denver and those mints added the S and D mint marks. Trying to find a reliable reference to confirm these claims especially for the years around the early 1940s. Australia sent only one set of punches for each of our denominations which were struck at both Denver and SF so only one mint had the punches (Philadelphia? as the main mint). If the SF and Denver mints did add their mint marks to finished dies then were the dies sent unhardened so the S or D could be added or did they just soften the dies themselves before adding mint marks?

[GrumpyEd]

I've always heard that it's pretty much as you said, dies were made in P then the branch mints punch the D or S so the branch mints would have their punches. Not sure if the dies were sent unhardened.

One clue is the 44 D/S cents. Always heard that the explanation was that the dies already in S with the S punched were sent to D and they reworked them and put their D on them and used them. Never heard if the dies are sent un-hardened or softened but the D/S sort of implies they could re-punch them later.

It was much later (modern times) that the D mint makes dies.

[nealeffendi]

Thanks GrumpyEd; yes I have read that some D/S cents exist. Now if Philly put that D on that die then that indicates that Philly had a D punch that is of the same font as the other '44D cents which means that either it stamped all the Ds on the dies or a die maker had made 2 matching D punches (one kept at Philly and the other sent to Denver) AND that SF had an S punch on the same basis (and if D had their dies pre mint marked wouldn't SF have had theirs done the same?). Doesn't seem logical.
More likely Denver and SF had the D and S punches and marked the dies that Philly sent. Whatever happened the questions needs to be asked 1:Why would SF send a die or a couple of dies to Denver when Philly is supposed to provide the dies? 2: If SF sent some dies to Denver why would they send dies that they have already punched an S into, presumably they had scores to hundreds of dies sent each year by Philly yet we are to believe that they had none of them in stock and Denver was so desperate for dies that they took S mintmarked dies? 3: Has it been PROVEN that those dies are genuine D/S? I'm asking this because just this week it has been proven that the Australian 1943S/D shilling variety exists from 2 dies and not one as previously accepted and that both dies in their early die state are plain 1943S. They are not real over mint marked varieties but a die fault that looks just like an over mint mark. Could that error borne of variety collectors hope of finding a new variety lead to false identification of a D/S die?

[GrumpyEd]

From everything I've ever read, only the branch mints would have their punch, P would not have them.

The experts pretty much are saying that the 44 D/S are real D/S.

Your question is good. I think the theory is that D wanted to make some more cents and got the dies from S. My thought is similar to yours, why would they do that? Why not find some used dies from D that still had some life in them (unless they scrap them already??) I guess it's possible they were being thrifty in wartime and maybe did re-use dies from S and we only see it on 2, it's possible they did some well enough that it would not show. Not sure if anyone ever found documentation of dies being shipped from S to D.

But, what you described on the 43 D/S shilling did happen on the 80 D/S cent which later was decided to be something else that only looked like that. Same thing may be true with some 56 D/S varieties. On those dates S had no reason to have dies unless you really stretch (they only made S proofs in 80) and stretch that they planned to make 56-S and changed their mind after making dies, either thing is a big stretch to accept. 44 D/S is a lesser stretch, they did make S and D bus strikes so it's less of a stretch that they would ship and re-use some dies. (if that makes sense LOL)

[GrumpyEd]

A question to me is why other nations decide to have the US mints make their coins, it seems they all have the capability. Especially in wartime why would they mint coins in the US and risk shipping them and they were busy shipping war materials which seems more important. The US was already in a frenzy of manufacturing, it's not like they had excess labor to make non essential things. Unless they thought coins and avoiding coin shortages for allies was as important as weapons for keeping morale high. An example of the risk was that they think the Germans were targeting ships carrying coins and bullion from the Britain and were good at sinking those ships. They figured out that the banks in the Britain were reporting coin and bullion sales and that made it easy to see what ships were leaving from where and the dates and target them with priority because they knew they had a cargo of bullion.

Article: LINK

[nealeffendi]

Hi GrumpyEd, There were good reasons for other nations to get US mints to strike their coins. In Australia's case we had a population of 7 million and our main mint (Melbourne) had only limited capacity, some of which was tied up making non coins for the war effort (medals for example), plus their was a staff shortage with many of the younger staff having joined up early in the war (remember most countries started fighting Hitler in 1939). A small branch mint (Perth), existed (it had only struck gold coins except for a year back in 1922) and was pressed into striking pennies. Then in 1942 the US decided to join the fight and a million troops ended up in Australia. They were known to be "over ***ed, over paid and over here" and with their pay being converted to the local money they created a big shortage of change. So it was arranged that a portion of the extra needs for change would be met by mints in India striking pennies and halfpennies and US mints striking the silver.

[Petespockets55]

........... They were known to be "over ***ed, over paid and over here" .......

So you're saying coinage wasn't the only thing our soldiers had trouble keeping in their pants?

[Petespockets55]

..........with the S punched were sent to D and they reworked them and put their S on them and used them .....

Did you mean put their D on them (over the reworked S)?

[GrumpyEd]

Did you mean put their D on them (over the reworked S)?

Yes, fixed it thanks